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6 Metrics to Improve Lower Half Mechanics · The Mound Visit

0:01
Speaker 1: And we are back with the mound visit podcast. This
0:03
Speaker 1: has been way too long since we have released an episode.
0:07
Speaker 1: I want to say it was back in April that
0:08
Speaker 1: we had one. And before that, I don't even know
0:11
Speaker 1: when the last one was. I think it was over
0:13
Speaker 1: a year prior to that. So I apologize for the
0:16
Speaker 1: inconsistency and the lull of, you know, releasing some episodes. And,
0:21
Speaker 1: you know, for me personally, I love podcasts. They're one
0:23
Speaker 1: of my favorite resources when I'm driving to work or,
0:26
Speaker 1: you know, driving around town, whatever it is that I'm doing.
0:29
Speaker 1: I love being able to ingest 15 to 20 minutes
0:32
Speaker 1: of an episode to develop myself, whether it's as a
0:35
Speaker 1: coach or just personal endeavors and things that I like
0:38
Speaker 1: to listen to. So hopefully we can get back on
0:41
Speaker 1: track with this starting with today's episode. And we're going
0:45
Speaker 1: to dive into some pitching mechanics. Specifically, we're going to
0:48
Speaker 1: talk about force plate data as this is becoming very
0:53
Speaker 1: popular in facilities and definitely in universities today. You know,
0:57
Speaker 1: I feel like this year, every time I go on Twitter,
1:00
Speaker 1: I'm seeing a new lab being put up at different
1:02
Speaker 1: universities and not even necessarily Power Force schools. We have,
1:06
Speaker 1: you know, mid-majors and some other divisions that are now
1:09
Speaker 1: starting to get some of these pieces of technology like
1:13
Speaker 1: force plates or motion capture systems. And it's really cool
1:16
Speaker 1: to see just the advancement that the game has had
1:19
Speaker 1: over the last couple years. And, you know, for us
1:22
Speaker 1: specifically at our facility at Pitching Coach U, we've recently
1:25
Speaker 1: have gotten some force plate mounds. We have the Axio
1:28
Speaker 1: force plates that are, um, honestly have been phenomenal. And
1:32
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to intentionally give a plug. I don't
1:34
Speaker 1: have any affiliation or get a kickback or anything, but
1:37
Speaker 1: they have been phenomenal, really good customer service. The plates
1:41
Speaker 1: themselves have been working really, really well. Um, and I
1:44
Speaker 1: had experience when I was with the twins using force
1:46
Speaker 1: plates and, you know, these are very comparable to what
1:50
Speaker 1: we used when, when I was with the Minnesota twins and, um,
1:53
Speaker 1: the detail we get and how quickly we get the
1:56
Speaker 1: data live as well as post-session to be able to
2:00
Speaker 1: dive into the numbers and create plans for guys based
2:02
Speaker 1: on what we're seeing has really been cool. So what
2:05
Speaker 1: I want to do today is I want to dive
2:06
Speaker 1: into some of those metrics that we look at. When
2:09
Speaker 1: you get a force plate mount and you get some
2:11
Speaker 1: of the CSV files for these, it is kind of
2:14
Speaker 1: crazy how many different metrics you can actually dive into.
2:17
Speaker 1: And a lot of them are similar. They're just going
2:19
Speaker 1: to have a little bit of differences to them specifically,
2:22
Speaker 1: whether it's the timing of when a certain force is happening.
2:26
Speaker 1: But there's literally hundreds of different metrics that you can
2:28
Speaker 1: dive into. And it can honestly be overwhelming if you
2:31
Speaker 1: don't have experience with this or don't know what's important
2:33
Speaker 1: and what's not important. And even though I have experience
2:36
Speaker 1: using these, I'm always trying to learn more and dive
2:40
Speaker 1: into new things and new ideas that maybe I hadn't
2:42
Speaker 1: even thought of prior to this. So it's been really
2:44
Speaker 1: cool just to educate myself more and to continue to
2:47
Speaker 1: get better as a coach. and to understand this data
2:49
Speaker 1: even better so that ultimately we can help our players
2:52
Speaker 1: even more. And I think we would all agree that
2:54
Speaker 1: that's the reason why we have motion capture systems. It's
2:58
Speaker 1: the reason why we have force plates, a track man,
3:00
Speaker 1: edutronic cameras, all these fancy tools. We're not getting them
3:04
Speaker 1: just because we want to spend a lot of money.
3:06
Speaker 1: We're getting them because we want to be able to
3:08
Speaker 1: dive deeper into understanding how our pitchers move, what they
3:12
Speaker 1: do well, and ultimately how they can improve. to win
3:15
Speaker 1: more baseball games. Because at the end of the day,
3:17
Speaker 1: that's what it's about, right? We're a lot of us.
3:20
Speaker 1: If you have these pieces of technology, you're probably at a,
3:22
Speaker 1: you know, a college or you're at a facility, whatever
3:25
Speaker 1: it is. And our number one job is to get
3:28
Speaker 1: these players better. So ultimately we can win more baseball games.
3:31
Speaker 1: So if we're not doing that, then it's just an
3:33
Speaker 1: expensive piece of technology. That's kind of just being wasted.
3:37
Speaker 1: So hopefully today I can shed some light on some
3:41
Speaker 1: of those details that you can dive into and, And
3:43
Speaker 1: even if you don't have a force plate mount, right?
3:45
Speaker 1: Like maybe you're listening and you're like, well, I don't
3:46
Speaker 1: have a force plate mount, so this isn't going to
3:48
Speaker 1: be useful for me at all. And I would say
3:51
Speaker 1: you may not be able to get the details of
3:55
Speaker 1: what the specific numbers are that you're looking for for
3:57
Speaker 1: your players because you don't have any way to measure it.
4:00
Speaker 1: But I think the concepts that I'm going to talk
4:01
Speaker 1: about are ways and things that you can do with
4:04
Speaker 1: your own players to still improve those areas of their
4:08
Speaker 1: mechanics or there are different things that you can start
4:10
Speaker 1: to program because you'll be able to see some of
4:12
Speaker 1: these things on video or have an idea of what
4:14
Speaker 1: they might do well or need to improve. So we're
4:17
Speaker 1: going to dive into six metrics today and these aren't
4:21
Speaker 1: the only ones that I look at or that you
4:23
Speaker 1: necessarily should look at. I would just say that these
4:25
Speaker 1: are kind of the bigger ones that we've seen have
4:28
Speaker 1: the strongest correlation to velocity and also just allowing guys
4:32
Speaker 1: to move better and honestly have better command too. If
4:35
Speaker 1: we move better and more consistently on the mound, there's
4:37
Speaker 1: a good chance we're going to throw more strikes and
4:40
Speaker 1: ultimately we're going to have higher velocity as well. So
4:43
Speaker 1: the first one I want to dive into, and if
4:45
Speaker 1: you are looking at this on YouTube, you'll be able
4:48
Speaker 1: to see my screen right now and see the graph
4:52
Speaker 1: and the video that I have of a pitcher here
4:54
Speaker 1: as an example. But if you're not and you're just
4:56
Speaker 1: listening to this, I'll do my best to provide the
4:59
Speaker 1: context and just the visual of what this might look
5:02
Speaker 1: like so you can imagine this in your head. So
5:05
Speaker 1: what we have here on the left is we have
5:07
Speaker 1: our graph. So this is showing us everything that the
5:09
Speaker 1: pitcher is doing with his back leg and his front leg.
5:13
Speaker 1: And then here on the right, for those of you
5:14
Speaker 1: that can't see, we have a video that is synced
5:16
Speaker 1: up of the pitcher throwing so that we can actually
5:18
Speaker 1: see this in real time, how he's producing force as
5:21
Speaker 1: he goes through his delivery. The blue line here is Z-force.
5:26
Speaker 1: So Z-force is force straight down into the ground. The
5:30
Speaker 1: greenish yellow line This is Y force. So Y force
5:34
Speaker 1: is the force we are producing pushing away from the rubber.
5:37
Speaker 1: So just think about pushing towards second base and gaining
5:40
Speaker 1: momentum down the mound. That is what Y force is.
5:43
Speaker 1: And the red line is X force. So this is
5:45
Speaker 1: the force we are producing towards the first base and
5:48
Speaker 1: the third base direction. The first one I want to
5:51
Speaker 1: focus on is this blue line, so peak Z. And
5:55
Speaker 1: I'll be honest, Z force, it's important, but I don't
5:58
Speaker 1: think it's the most important metric. We'll dive into this
6:01
Speaker 1: here in a little bit when we start talking about
6:02
Speaker 1: why force. But Z-force, as far as just like your
6:06
Speaker 1: raw capability to produce force straight down to the ground,
6:08
Speaker 1: it's important, but it's not the most important thing to me.
6:11
Speaker 1: What is important is the timing that we're producing that
6:14
Speaker 1: force and what this curvature looks like as you're seeing here.
6:17
Speaker 1: This is a pretty smooth graph here. You'll see in
6:19
Speaker 1: some examples where guys are just super choppy. It's almost
6:22
Speaker 1: like a hill rather than like a sharp, steep angle
6:25
Speaker 1: where they're producing force at a high rate. We want
6:28
Speaker 1: to see more of that, more of that smooth and
6:30
Speaker 1: more of that ramp-like buildup rather than just a little
6:32
Speaker 1: bit of a hill. But before we get to that,
6:35
Speaker 1: the thing that I want to talk about first is
6:37
Speaker 1: peak de-weighting. So you might be wondering, what the heck
6:40
Speaker 1: is peak de-weighting? I've never heard that term before. So
6:42
Speaker 1: de-weighting is essentially when we are getting to our lightest point.
6:47
Speaker 1: Most of the numbers that we are going to focus
6:48
Speaker 1: on with force plates is how much force are we
6:50
Speaker 1: producing from But the first metric I like to look
6:53
Speaker 1: at is how little of force are we producing as
6:56
Speaker 1: we are going into our leg lift. So I'll play
6:59
Speaker 1: this video here and you'll see how this starts to move.
7:04
Speaker 1: The lowest point that he is producing force is going
7:06
Speaker 1: to be where this little downward dip is in this
7:09
Speaker 1: blue line. And you can see he's at peak leg
7:12
Speaker 1: lift right now. And when we get our lightest is
7:15
Speaker 1: the moment we start to just descend down the mount.
7:18
Speaker 1: It's that very first move where the peak leg lift
7:21
Speaker 1: starts to come back down. This is where we are
7:24
Speaker 1: just starting to absorb the ground a little bit and
7:26
Speaker 1: we're not really producing a ton of force. The goal here,
7:30
Speaker 1: generally speaking, is to get to about 50% of our
7:33
Speaker 1: body weight. So if I weigh 200 pounds, I want
7:36
Speaker 1: my force at this point to be right around 100 pounds.
7:40
Speaker 1: If this is too high, that is a sign that
7:43
Speaker 1: we are bending our back leg a little bit too
7:45
Speaker 1: much into leg lift and we're trying to produce our
7:47
Speaker 1: power and our force probably a little bit too early
7:49
Speaker 1: in the And another way to look at this is
7:52
Speaker 1: we're not going to be able to maximize the stretch
7:54
Speaker 1: shortening cycle as well. So think of it this way.
7:57
Speaker 1: If you were to do a squat jump, are you
8:00
Speaker 1: going to produce a higher jump and more power if
8:03
Speaker 1: I start tall, go down, and then rapidly accelerate up?
8:07
Speaker 1: Or am I going to produce more power and jump
8:09
Speaker 1: higher if I start at a standstill in like a
8:11
Speaker 1: pause squat jump position and then jump up from there?
8:14
Speaker 1: More times than not, you're going to produce more power
8:16
Speaker 1: and you're going to have more elasticity if I start tall,
8:19
Speaker 1: go down, and then rapidly go up. Now, we could
8:22
Speaker 1: dive into some nuances here of different body types and
8:25
Speaker 1: archetypes in regards to wide and narrow ISAs. This is
8:29
Speaker 1: a conversation probably for a whole other episode. But the
8:33
Speaker 1: point I would like to make is there might be
8:35
Speaker 1: some guys where their jump height or their force production
8:39
Speaker 1: is semi-similar from starting from a tall position doing a
8:42
Speaker 1: counter movement jump as doing a squat jump. And then
8:45
Speaker 1: you have other guys where there is a huge difference
8:47
Speaker 1: and they really rely on that elasticity and that springiness
8:51
Speaker 1: into the jump. Those are more of your narrows and
8:53
Speaker 1: your widers or wide guys are going to be more
8:55
Speaker 1: of your force producers that they might have, you know,
8:58
Speaker 1: less of a need to have this super low D
9:01
Speaker 1: weighting phase in order to capture more energy. I would
9:04
Speaker 1: say that, you know, both camps could still benefit from it,
9:08
Speaker 1: but we definitely want to make sure that our narrow guys,
9:10
Speaker 1: think of just your taller, skinnier guys, they need to
9:13
Speaker 1: rely more on that elasticity and more of that D
9:16
Speaker 1: weighting so they can capture more energy as they're going
9:19
Speaker 1: down the mound. Okay, so our next one now is
9:25
Speaker 1: back leg peak Y. So back leg peak Y, that
9:28
Speaker 1: is this green line here. The peak is where it
9:31
Speaker 1: reaches the highest point here. And one thing that I
9:33
Speaker 1: didn't say at the beginning of this episode is this
9:36
Speaker 1: middle vertical line here, that is separating the back leg
9:40
Speaker 1: from the front leg. So anything to the left of
9:42
Speaker 1: that is the back leg. Anything to the right is
9:45
Speaker 1: the lead leg. So right now we're focusing on what
9:47
Speaker 1: our back leg is doing. And this green line here,
9:51
Speaker 1: once again, is showing us peak back leg Y. So
9:55
Speaker 1: Y force remember is pushing away from the rubber. And
9:58
Speaker 1: this one is actually from what we have found so
10:00
Speaker 1: far to be one of the leading indicators of throwing velocity.
10:04
Speaker 1: Guys that have sharper and higher peak forces in the
10:07
Speaker 1: Y direction tend to throw harder. This little green shaded
10:11
Speaker 1: area here, this is what's called impulse. So impulse is
10:14
Speaker 1: force being produced over time. So we could produce a
10:18
Speaker 1: little amount of force, but if we're holding it for
10:20
Speaker 1: a long duration of time, our impulse could still be okay.
10:22
Speaker 1: The other way you could do it is shorter window
10:25
Speaker 1: of that impulse window, but if our peak force is
10:28
Speaker 1: really high, the impulse could still be a decent number here.
10:31
Speaker 1: But ideally, we're producing force over a pretty long period
10:33
Speaker 1: of time while also getting to sharp and high peaks
10:37
Speaker 1: for this as well. So that's all that shaded area
10:40
Speaker 1: is showing. The impulse starts right at the peak D
10:43
Speaker 1: waiting point. So right here, literally where This picture is here.
10:46
Speaker 1: He has just started to descend from his leg lift
10:50
Speaker 1: into his stride where he is his lightest. This is
10:52
Speaker 1: the point where impulse actually starts. Now some systems, and
10:56
Speaker 1: I think even AxioForce and NewtForce and some of these
10:59
Speaker 1: other companies, they tend to start the impulse a little
11:02
Speaker 1: bit further back. Basically, whenever there is an increase in
11:05
Speaker 1: this Y force, they start to capture impulse. Just from
11:10
Speaker 1: my learning and understanding from when I was with the
11:12
Speaker 1: twins and talking to some of the best biomechanists in
11:14
Speaker 1: the world, One specifically, Martijn, he is absolutely incredible. Worked
11:18
Speaker 1: with him with the twins. He's now working in basketball
11:22
Speaker 1: and doing some other various consulting things as well, still
11:24
Speaker 1: in baseball. And he started or he mentioned starting this
11:28
Speaker 1: capture right around this point because this is where we're
11:30
Speaker 1: actually starting to produce force, right? We're not producing force
11:34
Speaker 1: really at any point before this. As I'm going to
11:36
Speaker 1: my leg lift, there is going to be a little
11:37
Speaker 1: bit of that Y force just because I'm getting a
11:39
Speaker 1: little bit of my center of mass shifted towards home.
11:41
Speaker 1: But I'm not actually starting to drive. So it could
11:44
Speaker 1: give a false implication of what that impulse actually is.
11:47
Speaker 1: So we wanted to make sure that we started this
11:49
Speaker 1: right when we're actually starting to create that force down
11:53
Speaker 1: the mound. So for peak Y here, generally speaking, we
11:57
Speaker 1: want to get to at least 50% of our body weight. Now,
12:00
Speaker 1: this depends on the velocity bracket that you're in. Like
12:02
Speaker 1: if you're a high school kid that's throwing 75 miles
12:05
Speaker 1: an hour, like you getting to 50% of your body
12:08
Speaker 1: weight for peak Y is probably going to be pretty
12:10
Speaker 1: big for you. You're probably going to be getting close
12:12
Speaker 1: to that 80 mile an hour range. Guys that are professionally,
12:15
Speaker 1: so like this pitcher here that is here, he's throwing
12:17
Speaker 1: in the low 90s here in this session. His peak
12:19
Speaker 1: Y force, let's see, I'm going to change that to
12:22
Speaker 1: body weight because I have it on raw force right now.
12:24
Speaker 1: So his peak Y was up to 68% of his
12:28
Speaker 1: body weight. So a pretty big difference from, you know,
12:30
Speaker 1: say a high school kid, or sorry, 73%. Pretty big
12:34
Speaker 1: difference from a high school kid trying to get to
12:35
Speaker 1: 80 miles an hour. Him getting to 50% is pretty important.
12:38
Speaker 1: For a guy like this that's thrown in the 90s,
12:40
Speaker 1: we're generally seeing 65% or higher. Now, it isn't necessarily
12:45
Speaker 1: the more the better. Like if he's at 68 and
12:48
Speaker 1: we think he should be at 75, it's not just
12:50
Speaker 1: now all of a sudden we're just going to try
12:51
Speaker 1: to push as hard as we can off the mat
12:52
Speaker 1: to create this artificial number to get that. But there
12:56
Speaker 1: is a combination of all these different metrics that we're
12:58
Speaker 1: looking at that are going to be indicators of a
13:00
Speaker 1: hard thrower. So the peak force is one important metric
13:04
Speaker 1: along with many others that we are starting to dive into.
13:07
Speaker 1: You know, on this episode, and we can even have
13:08
Speaker 1: another episode where we go into even deeper layers of
13:11
Speaker 1: exactly what we're looking for on the curvature of these
13:13
Speaker 1: lines when the peak force is actually happening. But for
13:17
Speaker 1: the sake of today's episode, that raw number, we want
13:20
Speaker 1: to see at least 50%. But once we start to
13:22
Speaker 1: get into the area of throwing 90 plus miles an hour,
13:25
Speaker 1: it's going to be closer to that 65 to 70%
13:26
Speaker 1: as being our benchmark. And remember, so just because this
13:33
Speaker 1: metric is measuring how much force you are pushing away
13:36
Speaker 1: from the rubber, this doesn't mean that you wanna try
13:38
Speaker 1: to all of a sudden jump off of the rubber
13:40
Speaker 1: or push as hard as you can because that's likely
13:43
Speaker 1: going to lead to a really pushy lower half. You're
13:45
Speaker 1: not gonna rotate as well. You're gonna get triple extension
13:48
Speaker 1: on that back leg way too early and likely you're
13:51
Speaker 1: gonna be dumping the torso forward a little bit too soon.
13:54
Speaker 1: So this should be happening with proper sequencing with the
13:57
Speaker 1: rest of your delivery. It's not just artificially trying to
13:59
Speaker 1: create a number just for the sake of creating that number.
14:03
Speaker 1: I always think of when I think of this peak
14:04
Speaker 1: Y number, I think of a tool. I'm trying to
14:06
Speaker 1: remember what it was called. I think it was called
14:08
Speaker 1: King of the Hill that some people still use. It
14:11
Speaker 1: was this little device where if you pushed up against it,
14:13
Speaker 1: it made a clicking sound and you could choose how
14:16
Speaker 1: much tension it required in order to make that sound.
14:19
Speaker 1: And I remember using this at one point and seeing
14:22
Speaker 1: other people use it. You literally just start pushing and
14:25
Speaker 1: jumping as hard as you can to try to make
14:26
Speaker 1: it click. And, yeah, you're producing the force, so to speak,
14:30
Speaker 1: in the Y direction, but everything else in your delivery
14:32
Speaker 1: is going to crap because you're trying just to isolate
14:34
Speaker 1: this one specific movement of pushing as hard as you
14:36
Speaker 1: can off the rubber. And that's not what we want
14:38
Speaker 1: to do. We want to make sure this is properly
14:40
Speaker 1: sequenced with everything else in the delivery, and it's a
14:42
Speaker 1: byproduct of moving well down the mound. Our next metric
14:48
Speaker 1: that we're going to look at is YZ transfer back.
14:51
Speaker 1: So that is a fancy way of talking about the
14:54
Speaker 1: back leg specifically. And what is the time difference between
14:58
Speaker 1: peak Y force and peak Z force? So remember, Z
15:02
Speaker 1: force is straight down on the ground. Y force is
15:04
Speaker 1: pushing away from the rubber. Ideally, we want these happening
15:08
Speaker 1: as close to the same time as possible. So we're
15:11
Speaker 1: looking at this peak blue line right here. So we
15:14
Speaker 1: can see where my cursor is. That is peak blue
15:16
Speaker 1: or peak Z force. And then where this green peak is,
15:19
Speaker 1: that is peak Y force. Ideally, we want those stacked
15:23
Speaker 1: as close to possible or as close as they can
15:26
Speaker 1: as possible. So if we see here for this specific picture,
15:30
Speaker 1: we can see Z force is happening a little bit
15:33
Speaker 1: before Y force. And we can see the milliseconds here.
15:35
Speaker 1: There's a 28 millisecond time difference. Now that might not
15:38
Speaker 1: seem like a lot, but every millisecond when we're talking
15:40
Speaker 1: about pitching mechanics, especially force production, is vital. Now I
15:45
Speaker 1: wouldn't say this is bad necessarily, and we don't even
15:47
Speaker 1: have necessarily like a specific time range that we're looking
15:49
Speaker 1: for right now. We're still doing some testing on this
15:52
Speaker 1: to see what leads to the best results. But generally speaking,
15:55
Speaker 1: we want them to be overlapped as close as possible.
15:58
Speaker 1: If you have a guy that is significantly reaching his
16:01
Speaker 1: peak Z force before Y force, that would be a
16:04
Speaker 1: sign that he is not gaining any momentum towards home
16:06
Speaker 1: into leg lift, and he is more of your drop
16:08
Speaker 1: and drive pitcher. So he is sitting straight down and
16:11
Speaker 1: then pushing out away from the rubber. Ideally, we're getting
16:14
Speaker 1: a little bit of that center of mass shift forward,
16:16
Speaker 1: so the drift in other words. And then as we
16:19
Speaker 1: go into our sit, because we already have a little
16:22
Speaker 1: bit of our center of mass going towards home, we're
16:24
Speaker 1: going to be producing our Y force and our Z
16:26
Speaker 1: force relatively at the same time. Now, there is such
16:30
Speaker 1: thing as too much of a drift, as I'm sure
16:31
Speaker 1: you've heard before. And how this would show up on
16:34
Speaker 1: a force plate mound would be if I am drifting
16:36
Speaker 1: too much and I then go into my sit, my
16:41
Speaker 1: Z force, the blue line, is not going to be
16:43
Speaker 1: very high, but my Y force still might be okay.
16:47
Speaker 1: And the reason for that is because I have momentum
16:48
Speaker 1: going towards home, so I'm going to be able to
16:50
Speaker 1: push off the rubber decently well But I'm not going
16:52
Speaker 1: to have enough energy to actually sit down and produce
16:55
Speaker 1: force straight down into the ground because my momentum has
16:57
Speaker 1: already shifted way too far down the mound. So there's
17:00
Speaker 1: a happy medium here that you'll have to play with.
17:03
Speaker 1: And really, when it comes to the drift, I don't
17:06
Speaker 1: like guys thinking, hey, let's fall towards home or let's
17:08
Speaker 1: get our momentum going towards home. I think there's some
17:11
Speaker 1: subtle things you can do in your delivery to get
17:14
Speaker 1: that initial move without even thinking about it, whether it's
17:17
Speaker 1: favoring a little bit more weight on the front leg.
17:19
Speaker 1: whether it's having your front shoulder slightly lean forward into
17:22
Speaker 1: leg lift. Whatever it is, there's a few different ways
17:24
Speaker 1: that we can do this to get our center of
17:25
Speaker 1: mass moving towards home. And the skill level of the
17:28
Speaker 1: player is going to matter too. Our younger kids, they
17:31
Speaker 1: don't have nearly as much body control or awareness as
17:34
Speaker 1: a college or a professional pitcher. So if I get
17:37
Speaker 1: their momentum going towards home too soon, they're not going
17:40
Speaker 1: to be able to capture anything or produce any force
17:42
Speaker 1: straight into the ground, and they're essentially just going to
17:44
Speaker 1: fall towards home. Versus our more skilled players and our
17:47
Speaker 1: stronger players, they're going to be able to get a
17:49
Speaker 1: little bit of that shift forward while still being able
17:51
Speaker 1: to stay in the back leg and produce force in
17:53
Speaker 1: the back leg as well. All right, our next metric
17:58
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about is peak lead leg Y.
18:01
Speaker 1: So now we are shifting over to the right side
18:03
Speaker 1: of the graph here. And Y force, remember, is still
18:06
Speaker 1: the green line. So now that we're here on the
18:08
Speaker 1: right side of that middle line, we are talking about
18:09
Speaker 1: the lead leg. And this is essentially our lead leg block.
18:14
Speaker 1: This is the metric that you would look at for here.
18:17
Speaker 1: So first, the raw force number. So how much force
18:20
Speaker 1: is my lead leg producing in the Y direction? So
18:23
Speaker 1: essentially pushing back into my body, back towards the rubber,
18:26
Speaker 1: so I can actually transfer my energy with my upper
18:29
Speaker 1: body over that front side. Ideally, we want to get
18:32
Speaker 1: close to 100% of our body weight for that lead leg.
18:36
Speaker 1: I've seen ranges upwards of 120%. I've also seen as
18:38
Speaker 1: low as you know, 50, 60% of those are usually
18:42
Speaker 1: guys that aren't landing very stable on that front leg
18:44
Speaker 1: and that knee is just collapsing and they are just
18:46
Speaker 1: continuing to fall towards home. So we want to get
18:49
Speaker 1: as close to 100% of body weight as possible. And
18:51
Speaker 1: then that leads into the next metric, which is clawback time.
18:55
Speaker 1: And then we want to make sure that line is
18:57
Speaker 1: shooting back up to zero as quickly as possible. So
18:59
Speaker 1: what that means is we are producing the force, we're
19:02
Speaker 1: applying the brakes, and now we're transferring the energy back
19:05
Speaker 1: up the chain. If this line just kind of trickles
19:08
Speaker 1: and doesn't actually shoot back to zero, that's a sign
19:10
Speaker 1: that the knee is continuing to collapse and we're essentially
19:13
Speaker 1: just getting soft into release rather than actually rotating around
19:16
Speaker 1: a firm front side. Now you don't have to get
19:18
Speaker 1: completely straight with that lead leg, right? Like lead leg
19:22
Speaker 1: block has been talked about for many, many years at
19:24
Speaker 1: this point and everybody has a different opinion on what
19:28
Speaker 1: a good lead leg looks like. For me, I don't
19:31
Speaker 1: think the lead leg needs to get completely straight in
19:33
Speaker 1: a ball release, but it definitely needs to be pulling back.
19:36
Speaker 1: it's continuing to drift forward that's definitely a no-no like
19:39
Speaker 1: we're not adequately transferring that energy up the chain and
19:42
Speaker 1: honestly even if it's just staying in place like yeah
19:44
Speaker 1: it's not as bad but we're still not transferring as
19:46
Speaker 1: much force as we could into the lead leg so
19:49
Speaker 1: ideally I like to see this shoot back up to
19:51
Speaker 1: zero as quickly as possible. And that's just a sign
19:54
Speaker 1: that we're quickly transferring energy up the chain into the
19:56
Speaker 1: upper body. And honestly, I would say that is the
19:59
Speaker 1: biggest thing that you will see with hard throwers compared
20:01
Speaker 1: to softer throwers. Yes, the peak forces might be different.
20:06
Speaker 1: But I've seen a 95-mile-an-hour thrower and an 80-mile-an-hour thrower
20:10
Speaker 1: honestly have very similar raw force numbers based on their
20:14
Speaker 1: body weight. Right now, the softer thrower, maybe he weighs
20:17
Speaker 1: less compared to the harder thrower. But even then, the
20:20
Speaker 1: force numbers are still pretty similar. What the harder thrower
20:23
Speaker 1: does differently is he produces that force at a faster rate.
20:27
Speaker 1: So he's able to transition from one segment to the
20:29
Speaker 1: next in a much tighter window, which then leads to
20:32
Speaker 1: higher velocity. So yes, raw force matters. But the timing
20:36
Speaker 1: in which things are happening and how quickly they're happening
20:39
Speaker 1: is also super important. And then that leads me into
20:43
Speaker 1: the next metric, which I think is our last metric
20:44
Speaker 1: we're going to dive into today. Yep, it is, which
20:47
Speaker 1: is peak Y transfer. So we're still staying on this
20:52
Speaker 1: Y category because Y force is honestly, I didn't really
20:55
Speaker 1: think about it until right now, until after all these
20:57
Speaker 1: things I've been talking about, about the Y direction. Y force,
21:00
Speaker 1: in my opinion, is probably the most important metric. with
21:04
Speaker 1: the back leg and the lead leg because it is
21:06
Speaker 1: just such a vital engine, so to speak, for our
21:10
Speaker 1: force for producing on the back leg and then capturing
21:13
Speaker 1: on the front leg to transfer it up the chain.
21:16
Speaker 1: So what is peak Y transfer? This is telling us
21:20
Speaker 1: how long it takes us to go from peak Y
21:23
Speaker 1: on the back leg to peak Y on the lead leg.
21:26
Speaker 1: So how quickly am I pushing my hardest off the
21:29
Speaker 1: back leg And what is the time difference between that
21:31
Speaker 1: point and when my lead leg lands and produces the
21:34
Speaker 1: most amount of force in order to transfer energy back
21:36
Speaker 1: up the chain? The faster that window, the better. And
21:40
Speaker 1: once again, this is where it comes back to raw force. Yes,
21:42
Speaker 1: it's important, but the speed in which things are happening
21:45
Speaker 1: is even more important in my opinion. So this is
21:48
Speaker 1: one of the more important metrics that we look at
21:50
Speaker 1: as well. And with a lot of these things, honestly,
21:52
Speaker 1: like I don't have super hard numbers to this point.
21:55
Speaker 1: We're still collecting a lot of data and information to
21:57
Speaker 1: figure out like what is optimal because For every guy
21:59
Speaker 1: that I see, you know, produces X amount of force
22:02
Speaker 1: and throws hard, I see the same guy do the
22:04
Speaker 1: same thing and he's throwing, you know, 10 miles an
22:06
Speaker 1: hour slower. So we're still diving into these numbers before
22:08
Speaker 1: we start sharing, you know, hard specifics of what we
22:11
Speaker 1: want to see, especially with the timing metrics. But just
22:15
Speaker 1: know that our harder throwers, generally speaking, are producing their
22:18
Speaker 1: force in tighter windows. Their graphs are smoother with sharper
22:22
Speaker 1: peaks rather than this bumpy, rigid, rigid hill's that are
22:25
Speaker 1: showing a lack of rate of force development as well
22:28
Speaker 1: as just stability throughout their lower half as they are
22:31
Speaker 1: producing this force. So we covered a lot of ground today.
22:36
Speaker 1: That was a lot of metrics to go over. And
22:38
Speaker 1: like I said, there's many more that we could dive
22:41
Speaker 1: into that are super important. And there might be, as
22:44
Speaker 1: time goes on, we might learn others that aren't as
22:46
Speaker 1: important and some that are more important, just like anything.
22:49
Speaker 1: As we evolve with our teaching and learning and educating ourselves,
22:54
Speaker 1: hopefully we're positively trending up in order to get better
22:58
Speaker 1: results for our players. But just to go over those
23:02
Speaker 1: six one more time. First one we went over was
23:03
Speaker 1: back leg peak D weighting. So remember, this is the
23:07
Speaker 1: lightest we are right around peak leg lift. That first
23:10
Speaker 1: initial move as we go from peak leg lift and
23:12
Speaker 1: transition to our stride, that is the lightest point we're at.
23:15
Speaker 1: Generally speaking, we want to be about 50% of our
23:17
Speaker 1: body weight for that. The next metric we went over
23:20
Speaker 1: was back leg peak Y. So this is the peak
23:23
Speaker 1: force we are producing on the back leg pushing away
23:26
Speaker 1: from the rubber. Number three, we went over was YZ
23:30
Speaker 1: transfer back. So, so folks on the back leg, this
23:32
Speaker 1: was telling us what was the time difference between Z force,
23:35
Speaker 1: which is straight down to the ground and Y force,
23:37
Speaker 1: which is pushing away from the rubber. Ideally, those are
23:40
Speaker 1: overlapping as close as possible to each other. Number four
23:44
Speaker 1: was lead leg peak Y. So this is now shifting
23:47
Speaker 1: to the front leg. This is the force produced on
23:50
Speaker 1: that landing leg shooting back towards the rubber. Number five,
23:55
Speaker 1: lead leg clawback. And then this is just simply telling
23:57
Speaker 1: us how fast or how long does it take us
23:59
Speaker 1: to go from that peak force in the lead leg
24:01
Speaker 1: in the Y direction to transferring that energy up the chain.
24:05
Speaker 1: And then the last one we went over was peak
24:07
Speaker 1: Y transfer. So this is talking about the transition from
24:11
Speaker 1: back leg peak Y to lead leg peak Y. And
24:14
Speaker 1: ideally that is happening in as small of a window
24:17
Speaker 1: as possible. So I appreciate you guys listening to today's episode.
24:20
Speaker 1: Before I let you go, I did want to share
24:23
Speaker 1: for those of you that are high school players or have,
24:26
Speaker 1: if you're a coach, if you have players on your
24:28
Speaker 1: high school team, or if you're a parent listening to
24:30
Speaker 1: this that has a high school player, we are bringing
24:33
Speaker 1: back our two day masterclass in Phoenix, Arizona. We've ran
24:37
Speaker 1: a handful of these over the last couple of years.
24:39
Speaker 1: We haven't had one for about a year to this point,
24:42
Speaker 1: but we're bringing it back and super excited for it
24:44
Speaker 1: because this is really going to be like a two
24:46
Speaker 1: day intensive where we're going to dive into every aspect
24:49
Speaker 1: of the pitching delivery, of pitch design, of the mental
24:54
Speaker 1: side of the game, like literally everything involving pitching and
24:58
Speaker 1: what it means to be a successful pitcher, we're going
25:00
Speaker 1: to give you tons of objective information, including this Axial
25:02
Speaker 1: Force Mound data. So you will be throwing on our
25:05
Speaker 1: mound where you will be getting all this data. We'll
25:07
Speaker 1: sit down with you and go over what it means,
25:08
Speaker 1: what we think the low-hanging fruit is for you, and
25:11
Speaker 1: give you a plan to actually get better. Because like
25:13
Speaker 1: I said earlier, information without a plan to get better
25:17
Speaker 1: and without leading to results is just expensive technology. And
25:21
Speaker 1: I don't know about you guys, but I don't want
25:22
Speaker 1: to spend money on things that aren't going to actually
25:24
Speaker 1: help players get better. So we've invested a lot of
25:28
Speaker 1: time and money and resources into making these things happen
25:31
Speaker 1: and with the sole purpose of getting players better. And
25:34
Speaker 1: we would love to be able to help you if
25:36
Speaker 1: you're a player or your son or your players here
25:39
Speaker 1: at our two-day masterclass, which is going to be taking
25:41
Speaker 1: place on November 7th to 8th. It's a Saturday and Sunday.
25:46
Speaker 1: It's going to be a full-day Saturday, half-day Sunday. It's
25:50
Speaker 1: going to be an incredible weekend. We're capping it at
25:53
Speaker 1: just 10 pitchers. My whole staff is going to be
25:55
Speaker 1: working with us on this to make sure that we
25:58
Speaker 1: are giving you incredible information and teaching and letting and
26:02
Speaker 1: leaving you with a plan when you go back home
26:05
Speaker 1: wherever you live to be able to get better and
26:07
Speaker 1: actually take your game to the next level and to
26:09
Speaker 1: be a resource for you along the way. So if
26:11
Speaker 1: you're interested in that, you can click the show notes
26:13
Speaker 1: or if you're watching this on YouTube, just look at
26:15
Speaker 1: the information below this for a sign up link along
26:18
Speaker 1: with some more information. to dive into that. So I
26:21
Speaker 1: appreciate your guys' time. Looking forward to continuing to grow
26:24
Speaker 1: the podcast. I really enjoyed this. And as time goes on, we'll,
26:28
Speaker 1: you know, we'll bring on some guests for this and,
26:30
Speaker 1: you know, maybe my employees will come on as well.
26:32
Speaker 1: And we'll just kind of talk shop and talk pitching.
26:35
Speaker 1: So I'll see you guys next time.